Types of Parallelism.ppt

Types of Parallelism Chapter 17 Justin Bellomi Characterizations of Parallelism Computer Architects characterize the type and amount of parallelism that a design has, instead of simply classifying it as Parallel or Non-Parallel. Virtually all computer systems have some sort of parallelism. Flynn defined a list of key characterizations using a system of names in 1996. Flynn Characterizations: Terms used to describe Parallel systems Microscopic Vs. Macroscopic Symmetric Vs. Asymmetric Fine-grain Vs. Coarse-grain Explicit Vs. Implicit Microscopic Vs. Macroscopic “Parallelism is so fundamental that an architect cannot design a computer without thinking about parallel hardware” ( Comer 280 ). Microscopic refers to aspects of Parallelism that are not especially visible. Macroscopic refers to the use of parallelism as the basic design principal around a system. Microscopic The term Microscopic is used to describe parallelism that is present in a system, but not necessarily visible. To be more specific, microscopic parallelism refers to the use of parallel hardware within a specific component. “Without parallel hardware, various components of a computer system cannot operate at high speed” ( Comer 280 ). Examples of Microscopic Parallelism: ALU – Most ALUs perform integer computation by processing multiple bits at a time. An ALU can be designed to compute an XOR on a pair of integers in a single operation. Registers – General Purpose registers in a CPU heavily use microscopic parallelism. Each bit in a register is implemented by a separate circuit, and parallel hardware is used to move data from the registers to the ALUs. Examples of Microscopic Parallelism: Physical Memory – fetch and store operations use hardware that is designed to transfer an entire word on each operation. Macroscopic Parallelism The term Macroscopic parallelism is used to characterize the use of parallelism across multiple, large-scale components of a computer system. Examples of Macroscopic